The Night of the Collision Course
by The Wild Wild Whovian
Summary: The Gadfly returns! A quiet afternoon in 1875 spent observing a prairie dog town turns into a race against time and the laws of physics when Artie's Time Lady daughter realizes two trains are about to collide – and one of them is the Wanderer. Special guest appearance of a certain train (and its occupants) from a particular non-Whovian time travel franchise.


_Thanks to The Nerd for help with the technobabble, and to Cal Gal for graciously betaing._

* * *

It was a beautiful day, with great puffy white clouds scattered here and there in the high vault of the endless azure sky. Not a soul around, nothing but peace and quiet as far as the eye could see or the ear could hear. The Gadfly took a deep breath and let it back out again in a long contented sigh.

Pity this wasn't where she'd intended to go! No, when she'd set the controls of her TARDIS a few minutes earlier, the destination she'd had in mind had been one of the last remaining drive-in theaters in the United States, there to lounge in her trusty TARDIS – chameleon-circuited into the shape of a '66 Mustang, no less – and watch the newly-released final movie of the Hobbit trilogy. Instead, she was in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of a prairie, in the middle of… Nebraska, was it? or maybe Colorado? in the middle of 1875!

Trusty TARDIS? Hah! TT capsules were quirky, unpredictable critters, every single one of them – not that she was daft enough to say that in the hearing of any TARDIS she knew. You set the coordinates on the console to tell a TARDIS where you wanted to go, and likely as not you'd wind up halfway across the universe, and a couple of millennia in the wrong direction to boot!

Still… It was nice here, and the Gadfly had a certain weakness for fauna. There was a prairie dog town a few hundred meters away; she could slip over there quietly and observe the vigilant little beasties. The Transcontinental Railway was somewhere off to the north within walking distance, and…

Hmm. She checked the year again, just to be sure. Yes, 1875. Maybe that's why she was here; maybe she'd be running into Dad. Her father, Artemus Gordon, along with his partner in the Secret Service, James West, might well be passing this way on their private train the Wanderer. The Gadfly smiled. It was always nice to see Dad and Uncle Jim, even if sometimes it was out of temporal order. Why, the last time she'd seen them, they hadn't even recognized her! And not just because she'd regenerated in the meantime either.

"Well," she told herself merrily, "the prairie dogs are a-waiting. Might as well grab a camera and get some video." She stepped back inside the TARDIS, grinned at the old girl's disguise this time – a gnarled Joshua tree – trees again! – and pulled together some supplies to pass the time until she could figure out just why she was here.

It took about half an hour for the prairie dogs to get used to her presence. She kept as still and silent as possible, not wanting to spook them, knowing that the ones that were standing stretched up tall on their hind legs were on guard so that the rest could go about their foraging as usual. If anything were to move the wrong way or make a loud enough noise, the sentries would bark out a warning that would send them all diving down the entrances of their burrows in a trice – and then it might take quite a while for them to nose out again to see if the coast was clear.

And so the Gadfly stayed as immobile as possible, lying on her stomach with her cell phone propped up on a rock, taking photo after photo, and the occasional video as well. Such funny little creatures! And yet noble as well, keeping an eye out for each other, working together to keep their whole community safe. There were plenty of humans, sadly enough, who hadn't mastered that simple philosophy. In a way, she mused, losing focus on the prairie dogs as she became lost in her thoughts, her dad and Uncle Jim were like the sentinels among the prairie dogs, guarding the others so they could go about their lives…

Then she had to laugh at herself. What an idea! And not a particularly accurate one either, given that Dad and Uncle Jim commonly showed up _after_ the danger had already begun. Still, she liked the mental image of her dad's face on the head of a guarding prairie dog; she might just have to do a cut-and-paste of that and make the mental image viewabl…

A suddenly _yip_ from one of the sentries cut through her thoughts, and instantly there were no longer any prairie dogs above the ground.

"Oh, hello!"

A human voice? Who could be out here in the middle of nowhere? The Gadfly rolled over and looked up.

A boy! A young kid, maybe ten years old or so, dressed in a style appropriate to the end of the nineteenth century, was walking towards her, his head tipped to one side inquisitively. "What are you doing?" he called.

She sat up and brushed the dust off the front of her clothing. "Well, I _was_ observing the prairie dog town," she answered and waved a hand toward the collection of burrows among which there was now not so much as a whisker left in sight.

"Prairie dogs?" echoed the boy. He looked around eagerly, but then his smile faded. "I scared 'em off, didn't I?"

"Afraid so," she replied. "If we're quiet enough though, they might pop out again."

His smile came back, and he plopped himself down on the ground at her side. They waited.

The Gadfly was just beginning to think the little inhabitants might be about to make their appearances again when she felt a nudge at her side. "By the way," said the boy, sticking out his hand, "I'm Verne."

Without a moment's hesitation – and really, in 20/20 hindsight, she _should_ have thought this through first! – she put on her best impersonation of Ernest P Worrell and said, "Hey, Verne!"

Ok, so it was a cheesy imitation and about a century out of its proper time, but she never would have imagined the kid would react like this! Verne sprang up to his feet, his eyes as big as saucers, and he pointed a shaky finger at her. "You… you're a time traveler!" he exclaimed.

Which was of course the absolute truth, but how did he know? "Ah…" she said. "Um… Well, yes. Is that a problem?"

Apparently he wasn't listening. He peered around in every direction, then demanded, "But how did you get here? Where's your time machine? I don't see another train."

"She's right over…" The Gadfly started to point at the Joshua tree, then changed directions in midsentence. "Wait a minute: a train? You expect my time machine to be a _train?"_

"Well, sure!" said Verne. "Ours is. See over there?" He pointed, and now the Gadfly noticed that, sure enough, there was a steam engine standing on the rails of the Transcontinental Railway not all that far away.

The Gadfly scrambled to her feet. "You travel in that?" she exclaimed.

"Sure do!" said the kid proudly. "My pa invented it!"

"Your pa… Oh, this I gotta see!"

"Well, come on!" Verne invited, and set out leading the way.

…

The Gadfly's first impression of Verne's pa was that he was very tall, very lean, and very old. He was sprawled over the side of the boiler of the steam engine, tugging at some sort of stubborn handle and indulging in the sort of language men of this era didn't normally use in front of women or children.

"Um, Pa…" said Verne.

At that moment the handle chose to loosen itself dramatically, and the next moment the old man was sprawling on the ground instead.

Or not so old. The Gadfly found herself revising her estimate. The man's hair was as white and wild as her own, and his face had a certain timeless cragginess to it, but his eyes were all energetic youth and creativity. He looked up at his son and scolded, "Verne! Never sneak up on your old man while he's working, son. Now help me up."

The boy grabbed his pa's hand, but for all the old man groaned and wheezed as he came upright, the Gadfly could tell it was ninety-five percent playacting and the boy wasn't really pulling the man up at all. "Oh, bless you, my boy! These old bones of mine… Oh! Hello."

And now the man had spotted her. He smiled, an odd smile that involved a lot of curl to the lips and a lot of squinting at the eyes. "And you are…?"

Oh, there was a question! Her dad might be satisfied to call her the Gadfly, or more frequently Peaches, but those names would only lead to more questions if she used them around anyone else. She did have an ordinary name, though, one she'd chosen fresh for her new face and body back when she'd regenerated. Holding out her hand, she replied, "I'm Beth. Or Bethany; I answer to either."

"Oh?" The old man yanked a large bandanna from his back pocket, swiped the grease from his hands, and shook her hand. "Emmett Brown," he said. "Well, _Doctor_ Emmett Brown. I answer to Doc."

For a moment the Gadfly was sorely tempted to ask if he might be any relation to another time traveling Doctor of her own people, but this time she caught herself before she could put her foot in her mouth and desisted instead. And anyway, Doc had turned his attention to his son and was saying, "Verne, run tell your ma we've got company."

"Yes, Pa, but you know what? She's a ti…"

"Now, now, go on and do as you're told, boy! Shoo!"

"But, Pa! She's like us! She travels in…"

Doc winced and shook his head, waving the kid toward the rest of the train. "Go get your ma!" he said, drowning out Verne's earnest attempts to inform on the Gadfly. Still shaking his head, he turned back to his work. "Kids these days!" he said apologetically. "My wife will be along shortly. You could maybe step into our parlor and have tea or, well, something like that. I need to get this train fixed."

"Fixed? It's not working?"

"Well, it, uh… yeah, the, uh… the…" He gestured with his hands, making odd vague swoops, not really making any sense at all.

A loud electronic whine from behind him nearly made Doc Brown jump right out of his work boots. He whirled. _"What was that?"_ he yelped just as the sound quit again.

Beth was standing there calmly studying an odd-looking contraption in her hand. The thing was about the size of three brand-new pencils rubber-banded together. "Uh-huh, there's your problem," she said and turned the something so Doc could see a small read-out window on the side. "It won't fly."

"Well, yes, in fact, that's it exactly, and I need to… Great Scott! How did you know that?"

Beth gave a lopsided smile. "Well, that's what Verne was trying to tell you, Dr Brown. I'm a time-traveler myself."

"You… you _what?_ But _I_ invented time travel! Have you stolen the design of my flux capacitor? Where's your time machine? I demand to see your time machine!"

It was all Beth could do not to laugh in the indignant man's face. _He_ invented time travel? He, the Johnny-Come-Lately after all the generations of Time Lords before him? But rather than confuse matters by bringing the temporal engineers of Gallifrey into this, she instead obligingly pointed back the way she and the boy had come and said, "Way, way over there. You see that Joshua tree? That's my TT capsule in disguise."

Doc peered off the way she was pointing. "Oh, yes, I think I can s… In disguise! Oh, don't give me that, lady! And what's a TT capsule anyway?"

She shrugged modestly. "TT stands for Time Travel, of course. And isn't yours disguised as a train?" She waved at the boiler he'd been working on; when the handle had dislodged, it had opened a compartment in the side of the boiler within which was patently _not_ the large open space of the steam chamber a train of this era ought to have.

Doc Brown shook his head vigorously. "No, no, no! It's not just disguised as a train. It _is_ a train! Albeit it with some, er, minor improvements."

"Minor," Beth echoed. "Such as the flux capacitor you mentioned."

"Yes!"

"And the, ah…" She took another glance at the read-out on her sonic screwdriver. "Anti-gravity boosters, which is the part of the train that's currently giving you trouble."

"Y-yes." Doc stared at her aghast. "How can you know that?"

"I scanned your machine with this, remember?" She gave a high-pitched whistle, imitating the sonic's whine. "Look, if you think I'm here to steal any of your designs or inventions, Dr Brown, let me assure you, that's not the case. I'll admit I don't know exactly why I _am_ here just at this moment, but if there's anything I can do to help you fix your time machine, I'll be glad to help."

"No, no. That's… that's perfectly fine, Miss, er… What did you say your name was?"

"Beth."

He gave her a sidelong look. "_Just_ Beth?"

She sighed, knowing he wasn't thinking of the rest of the name Bethany. Last names! Why did Earth folks set such store by last names? All last names did, in her estimation at least, was make you more easily trackable. Well, she wasn't about to give him the name of Gordon. Gadfly wouldn't do as a last name either.

Or would it?

"Fly," she said confidently. "Bethany Fly. At your service."

"Fly!" That was Verne, coming back again, hauling a pretty dark-haired woman by the hand, another boy a couple of years his senior hurrying along with them. "Did you say Fly?" Verne bubbled. "Or _Mc_Fly?"

McFly?

" 'Cause, see," Verne went on excitedly, "that's the other person who does that 'Hey, Verne' joke all the time: my uncle Marty. Marty McFly. You know him?"

"I…" Beth stared at the boy for a blank moment, then shook her head. "Sorry, no, I don't. Your uncle, you say?"

"More like a family friend," said the dark-haired woman, adding, "and as no one seems disposed to make introductions, how do you do? I'm Clara Brown, Verne's mother." She offered her hand and the Gadfly took it.

"Bethany Fly. Nice to meet you."

Drawing the other boy close, Clara continued, "And this is our elder son, Jules."

"How do you do?" the boy mumbled, even as Beth's eyes lit up.

"Jules Verne! Why, that's _wonderful!_ He's one of my favorite authors, and my dad and I even met him once. Well, about a decade from now, that is, in 1886."

Clara blinked and blanched. "1886?" she exclaimed. "Then…" She turned to her younger son. "You really meant it! A time traveler, such as we are!"

"Can you help Pa fix our train?" asked young Jules gravely.

"I can try. That is, if he'll accept my help." Beth cut a sidelong glance at Doc, knowing full well that he didn't want her poking about inside his time machine, possibly learning his secrets – which to him, no doubt, would equal _stealing_ his secrets. There was only one thing that would induce him to acquiesce, and that was the fact that his family was going to…

"Oh, Emmett, that's marvelous! Just when the train has broken down, here is someone who knows about time travel who can help you repair it!"

"Uh… but it's not the time travel portion that's broken. Once we get the old girl up to eighty-eight miles an hour, she'll travel through time just as she always does. The problem is that she won't _fly_."

"The anti-grav boosters," Beth prompted. "But why do you need her to fly?" And why do we time travelers always think of our time machines as _shes?_

"It's a train. It takes a long distance to get her up to eighty-eight miles an hour. When she can fly, we just…" He made a soaring motion with his hand. "…fly! But being earth-bound, we'll need to roll on the tracks to get her up to speed. It'll take quite a ways along the tracks, and, well…"

Beth leaned closer, shaking her head to show she wasn't following.

Doc too leaned closer, and taking Beth's arm, he steered her slightly away from his family. "There might be a train coming from the other direction," he whispered. "After all, we're not authorized to be here occupying the tracks. As far as anyone from this time knows, this is a wide open stretch of track. That's why we need to get out of here."

Beth started rolling up her sleeves. "Well then, let's get busy, hmm?" Ah, at last she had figured out why her TARDIS had brought her here and now!

…

Over an hour passed, during which time the sound of the sonic screwdriver whined again and again. At last Doc closed up the boiler and wiped his hands clean on the bandanna. "Well, let's get her a try. _All aboard!"_ He vaulted into the cab, then boosted Beth up alongside him. Grabbing the speaking tube, he blew into it, then said loudly, "All right, Clara. We're going to see how it goes. Are you and the boys ready?"

He moved the tube from his mouth to his ear, listened, then spoke into the tube again. "All right. Strap in just in case." He hung the end of the tube up, and his hands started dancing over the controls.

Beth watched attentively. "I take it that you don't need to wait for the steam to build up, since there's no actual boiler for the steam."

"That's right," said Doc. "This sucker's nuclear."

She all but laughed. "Impressive," she said instead.

"Yes, it needs a lot of energy to generate the one-point-twenty-one gigawatts of power to send this baby through time!"

Beth nearly laughed again. "Um… _jig_awatts?"

"Yes, precisely. One-point-twenty-one gigawatts of power – and believe me, using a mini-nuclear reactor is a _far_ better method than having to rely on a convenient bolt of lightning!"

"I'm not… I'm not disputing how much power you need to travel through time in your train, Doc. I'm just saying… well, er… most people pronounce it _gig_awatts. Gig, not jig."

Doc gave a snort. "Oh, really! And I suppose most people say it gif instead of jif too, hmm?"

"Well…"

"Miss Fly, I assure you, I am not the type to mindlessly follow what the rest of the world does! You know your Frost, don't you? The road not taken? Or…" He frowned. "…was that Emerson? or Thoreau?"

"The road less traveled by? Marching to a different drum?" she hazarded.

"Precisely!" And with a flourish, Doc Brown threw a switch.

The train lurched forward, shuddered, and began to pick up speed.

…

Far down the track, coming from the opposite direction and heading west, was another train – engine, tender, baggage car, and varnish car – barreling along the Transcontinental Railway and making good time on what its engineer believed was a wide open track.

…

"Well, here's goes nothing!" Doc Brown called over the sound of the rushing wind. He reached over and grabbed another switch, then added, "You might want to hold on to that strap hanging above your head, Miss Fly!"

Beth slipped her hand through the strap and took a good grip. "Ready!" she called.

"Here goes!" cried Doc. He threw the second switch.

Again the train shuddered and for one glorious moment it started to lift into the air. But then with a harsh shriek and a groan, she slammed back down onto the tracks.

Doc let out an exasperated sigh. "No, huh? Can you, uh, use that noisy thing and see what went wrong?" He eased off the throttle.

"Sure," said Beth. Briefly the electronic whine filled the air, then she checked the read-out. "Looks like the primary Higgs field manipulator has fallen out of sync. I can try to recalibrate it on the fly," she offered.

Doc turned toward her a longsuffering glare.

"Oops. Sorry about the accidental pun. I'll, uh, go over there and see what I can do."

"Fine. You do that," said Doc, checking their speedometer. "We'll be rolling to a stop in another, oh, mile or so."

And that's when they heard the whistle of the other train on the track ahead of them.

…

The sudden hooting of their train's whistle startled the two occupants of the varnish car of the west-bound train. Both stared toward the front of the train as they felt a great lurch. A moment later a loud screeching filled the air.

Now they turned towards each other. "That's the emergency signal, Jim!" said the one. "And the brakes just engaged!"

"I'll talk to the engineer, Artie, and see what's wrong," said the other. He hopped up and strode for the speaking tube by the varnish car's fireplace. First he blew into it to get the engineer's attention, then he called out, "Orrin! What's going on?" He moved the end of the tube to his ear to listen.

Moments later, quietly, without even speaking into the tube again, he hung up the tube and stared at it for a second.

"Jim?" His partner came to his feet. "Jim, what's the matter?"

"Orrin says there's another train on the track. It's coming our way. There are no sidetracks between here and there, and at the speed we were going when he spotted it and started leaning on the brakes… Artie, it will take us at least a mile _beyond_ the other train's current position to stop the Wanderer."

"In other words, a mile before that point, we're going to crash," Artie interpreted. He too stood for a moment, processing this information. Then both men, without a word to coordinate their actions, ran for the corridor that led toward the front of the train.

…

"What was that?" said Beth, the urgent hoot of the train whistle sending cold fingers up her spine.

"We, uh… don't seem to be alone on these tracks," Doc replied. He glanced over the controls before him, making mental calculations, then threw the throttle wide open.

"What are you doing? Are you nuts?" yelped Beth.

"I told you! When she reaches eighty-eight miles per hour, she time travels! If we can speed up enough before we reach the other train, we'll disappear!"

"And if we don't, we're all mincemeat, Doc!"

"Well, what other solution do we have? Can you make her fly in time?"

"I…" Beth dropped to the floor, opened a hatch, and took a good look at the innards of the engine. "I don't know!" she yelled back.

"Then we go with the only alternative we have," Doc replied, "and hope we hit eighty-eight before we hit, ah…" He squinted at the train up the track. "Well, whatever number engine that is."

Beth hopped back up and fished a spyglass out of one of her transdimensional pockets. She expanded the spyglass, clapped it to one eye, focused on the number on the front of the other engine.

And let loose one of the words Doc had been using earlier just before he fell off the side of the train.

"What's the matter now?" yelled Doc, his eyes on the speedometer, urging it faster, faster, faster. If willpower alone would get them to the proper speed with time to spare, they would have nothing to worry about.

Beth slammed the spyglass shut. "That's the Wanderer!" she howled. "My father is on that train!

…

Jim and Artie emerged from the forward end of the baggage car, right behind the tender, and leaned out on either side to see what Orrin had informed them of. Yes, there was the other train in the distance, all right. They exchanged a glance, then Artie cupped one hand by his mouth and hollered up to the engineer, "How's it look?"

Orrin's voice floated back to them. "It's the craziest thing, Mr Gordon, but I swear the other engineer has speeded up! At this rate we won't be able to come to a halt until something like _two_ miles beyond that other train. And it's not even supposed to be there!"

Again the two Secret Service agents exchanged a glance. "Th-thank you, Orrin!" Artie called forward, then he followed Jim back into the baggage car where they could talk without yelling.

"Well?" said Jim. "Any ideas?"

Artie shrugged and threw wide his hands. "I don't know, Jim! You cannot change the laws of physics. Momentum is velocity times mass, and a train the size of the Wanderer has a lot of mass. Couple that with the velocity at which we were moving when Orrin spotted the other train…"

"…not to mention, the other train's own momentum," put in Jim.

"Yeah, and the unimaginable fact that the other engineer is actually increasing his momentum! Well, Orrin knows his business, and what he says about the stopping distances involved, I would tend to believe him."

"So we're going to crash."

"I don't see any way around it, Jim." Artie looked at Jim, hating the feeling of being helpless to avoid the inevitable – and saw Jim's eyes cut toward the tall brown cabinet in the corner. He nodded. "All right, we could use the TARDIS to get off the Wanderer safely, you and I. But what about Orrin? We can't just abandon him. And while a TARDIS's Chameleon Circuit allows it to change its shape and appearance, I kind of doubt if she can land inside the cramped quarters of the cab of the engine up there."

Jim's eyes bored into his partner's. "But we can try."

…

Beth leaned out the window of the cab of Doc Brown's train, staring straight ahead down the tracks at the Wanderer drawing nearer, always nearer. "How fast are we going?" she called.

Doc checked the speedometer. "Sixty-six!" he yelled back.

Beth did some rapid calculations within her head. "We're not increasing our velocity fast enough, are we?"

Doc's answer was silence.

Beth licked her lips. She had thought she'd known why her TARDIS had brought her to this here and now, but that reason had changed. She was now on a train barreling down the tracks to crash headlong into the train carrying her dad, Uncle Jim, and good ol' Orrin Cobb. There had to be some way to stop it! But how – how was she going to stop a train wreck…

Oh!

She reached into a pocket and pulled out a device on a wide leather strap, and quickly cinched it around her wrist. Then she popped open the cover and started typing.

"What are you doing?" asked Doc.

"What Chip brought me here to do – I hope." She pressed a button on the wrist device.

And vanished.

…

A heartbeat later, Beth reappeared inside her TARDIS. "Chip, how wide can you make your front door?" she hollered. "And what about your back door?"

Her TARDIS had never had a back door before.

"Well, you better get started opening one up, girl, 'cause we're gonna need it!" Beth reset a few dials on the console, then pulled the lever for spatial flight and sent her TARDIS hurtling right into the middle of the incipient train wreck.

…

In the parlor of Doc's train where Clara huddled with her children, the speaking tube whistled and she picked it up. "Yes? Emmett, what's going on?"

As succinctly and soberly as possible, Doc explained the situation to his wife.

"Then… we're not going to…"

"Not if I can help it, Clara," Doc vowed. "But I need to know something. That woman, Beth Fly – did she show up in the back with you?"

"What? Why, no. How could she? Emmett, what's going on?"

Doc let the tube slip from his fingers. He had really hoped…

Grimly he cursed the woman for saving her own hide, but not using her vanishing device to go to the back and get his wife and sons off this train.

…

On the Wanderer, Jim and Artie were working out the coordinates to relocate their TARDIS into the narrow space of the engineer's cab, when a renewed hooting of the train whistle sent them both scrambling out the forward door of the baggage car again. They leaned out on either side of the train and saw…

A hut? There was now a hut sitting on the train tracks before them? Forget crashing into the other train; they were going to destroy that hut first – and where had it come from?

"Ah…" said Jim. "Artie, is that what I think it is?"

"Maybe," Artie replied. For what had initially looked like a hut was growing larger, and not just the usual optical illusion by which closer objects looked bigger. This thing really _was_ getting bigger, rapidly… turning itself into…

…

"A tunnel?" exclaimed Doc Brown. He couldn't believe it! A box had landed on the tracks between them and the other train, and amazingly the box had expanded into a tunnel.

He glanced down at the speedometer. Seventy-three miles per hour. They weren't going to make it. They would hit that impossible tunnel first, and then the other train. Grabbing the tube one last time, Doc hollered down it, "Clara! I love you. You and the boys!"

…

They hit. Both trains, both at the same time, hit the tunnel. Except _hit_ wasn't exactly the right word. Both trains were engulfed by the tunnel, this one and that one speeding into the opposite ends of the three-foot long tunnel.

"You got 'em routed onto different tracks, Chip?" called the Gadfly.

Oh, yes. Each train sped into the darkness of the tunnel that was the Gadfly's TARDIS. Each train hurtled forward, its occupants seeing nothing except occasional flashes of light as they zipped along, deeper and deeper into the tunnel.

To an outside observer, if such a person had existed, it would have seemed that the stubby little tunnel gobbled up both trains entirely. For a long, long moment the short structure stood there silently.

And then with a rush and renewal of noise, each train burst forth from the tunnel, Doc's train still barreling eastward and approaching eighty-four miles an hour, the Wanderer still heading westward and gradually slowing down. Somewhere in the depths of the TARDIS the trains had passed and missed each other.

And for a very brief second, Artie recognized the console room and a smiling white-haired woman who waved as they passed through.

While in the opposite direction, a needle hit eighty-eight and with a dazzling sound-and-light show, the other train vanished.

…

Two and a half miles down the track, the Wanderer at last came to a halt. Orrin dropped from the cab and started walking around the old girl, checking every bit of her for anything amiss. He carefully avoided, though, getting anywhere near Mr West or Mr Gordon. Somehow he just didn't want to, well, _talk_ to anyone just now.

In the varnish car, by contrast, Jim and Artie were talking. "That was your daughter's TARDIS, you say," Jim stated.

"Oh, yes! I recognized her. That was Peaches, all right. The white-haired version. She waved as we passed through."

Jim shook his head. "Well, all I can say is that her timing was impeccable. But I wonder where that other train came from?"

Artie nodded. "And for that matter, where it went?"

Meanwhile, well over a century into the future, Doc was wrestling with that balky handle on the side of his engine again, trying to reach the Higgs field manipulator. And just as it let loose once more, spilling him off onto the hard ground, a voice asked, "Need some help?"

He looked up at the upside-down view of someone he was very angry with. "You!" he growled as he scrambled to his feet. "Where did you go?"

She eyed him for a long moment before replying, "I, ah, needed to get something."

"Yeah? What, as far away from that train wreck as possible? You could have at least gone to the back to rescue my family!"

Man, he didn't get it, did he? _I did!_ competed in her mouth with _Where do you think that tunnel came from? _But what she said at last was, "Never mind. It doesn't matter." She turned to leave.

Doc grabbed her arm and swung her around to face him. "Doesn't matter! You left us to _die_, lady! And if it hadn't been for that... that _thing_ landing right there in the middle and… well, I don't know what happened. Somehow we passed through… some other dimension, I suppose. We passed through and came out the other side, and, well, managed to miss the other train entirely."

With a weary smile she patted his arm. "Well. Good for you. I'm glad you're all safe. My dad and the others on the Wanderer are safe too."

Doc snorted. "No thanks to _you_," he growled.

"Yeah, so I see. Well, have a great day, Doc." She waved and walked away.

"Hmph. Good riddance," grumbled Doc as he went back to his work.

"Hey, Pa! That was Beth again! Did you see her?" Verne came running up beaming.

"I saw her," said his pa shortly. "And hope to never see her again!"

Verne stared at him, stunned. "What? But why not?"

Doc shook his head. "Never mind, son. It doesn't matter."

"Doesn't matter! But… But she was nice, Pa! I liked her."

Doc snorted. "Well, that's because you don't know what she did."

Verne tipped his head, perplexed. "What she did? You mean, how she brought us the tunnel?"

"Brought us the… _what?"_

Verne pointed.

And sure enough, off by the far end of the train was Beth Fly, stepping into something that certainly looked exactly like the three-foot-long tunnel, the strange little building their train had passed through, both trains at the same time and never even seeing each other. And even as Doc watched, the entrance to the tunnel closed up behind the woman, and the tunnel shrank down into the box he had seen when it had first landed on the track, and then, like watching a movie running backwards, the box lifted into the air and hurtled away, out of his sight.

By his side, Verne grinned. "Wow, Pa! That was great, wasn't it? Her time machine doesn't just fly, it even changes sizes!"

Doc dropped his wrench; he had already dropped his jaw. "I…" he said slowly.

Verne looked up at him. "Something wrong, Pa?"

"No," said Doc. "Or… well, yes."

"What, Pa? What's wrong?" asked his little boy.

And with a slightly cracked chuckle, Doc Brown shook his head and answered, "Well, Verne – apparently me!"

**FIN**


End file.
